Not Your Average Wall Art.

What I learned from running a custom watercolor portrait studio for 5 years

I run a brooklyn-based custom watercolor portrait studio called WaterColorCastle. Since 2012, we’ve served 300+ clients all over the world and featured in multiple art & design publication such as Redbook (a Hearst Publication). Check out our portraits & process here or follow us on instagram for our newest work.

I started WaterColorCastle from my dorm room.

I spun up an etsy shop in a weekend and started selling my misc paintings. Later in the year I also sold them in a physical student art sale at RISD. I didn’t specify a theme for my shop at first, and I only threw a custom portrait listing in for the mix.

physical art sale vs etys shop

But soon I realized that miscellaneous original painting sell really well at the physical art sale while the custom portrait does really well online.

I started digging in more.

The Custom Portrait Market

so, is there a market?

In the modern days, it has a new meaning. Why do we need hand painted portraits, if you can take 1000 selfies with the snap of a finger?

1.Portraits is stylized, forgiving and gestural.

2.You can hang them up in your house without looking egoistic.

3.Portraits can be gracefully passed on. They have an intrinsic value associated with care and craftsmanship. Gifting.

The current custom portrait market is comprised of three main categories.

The Fifth Year

It’s just an means to an end.

my greater purpose is to revive the art form of portraits and start to realize the ephemeral beauty of the present time and try one’s best to capture a memory. The best way to do that is to leave space for the mind. And a painting does exactly that.